This is a rant video from AvenueX talking about
a chinese period drama that's being aired right now.
As you can tell, it's set in Tang dynasty.
The reason I don't mention what this drama is in the title is
because I have a video I made on bilibili ranting about this drama
and they've been giving me trouble about copyright stuff.
So here on youtube to be safe,
i'm just gonna be sitting here ranting
All dressed up.
Feng Qi Ni Chang, Weaving A Tale of Love.
It's a 40 episode drama that's been aired on Hu Nan TV
at the same time on the web platform Youku
It is led by Gu Li Na Zha and Xu Weizhou based on a novel Da Tang Ming Yue
The novel's story is actually based on real
historical figures living in Tang dynasty china,
namely a very famous politician/ general.
Pei Xingjian and his wife Kudi Shi, plus the very famous
only female emperor in china's history.
Wu Zetian, this novel had a big readership and a lot of people really liked it,
but the adapted drama version just did all the wrong things
it could possibly do
before I turn my ranting spirit full on.
I wanna still say this is by no means a drama
that has nothing worth watching in it.
It is a very pretty drama.
We have a very pretty female lead.
I would also say most of the costumes in this drama are pretty high quality,
but that's pretty much the only good thing I can find in this drama.
So let's have fun.
I'm just gonna pick out a couple of points throughout this drama,
within the episodes that I had the misfortune of viewing.
First, to condense this story short,
our female lead character has a genius mother
who is supposedly the most talented person.
At making clothes,
a master tailor and master needle work person.
She used to be serving in the imperial court,
but she got tired of all the drama.
So she went to ask for a grant and got it from the
former empress allowing her to leave the court.
Our female lead character is this woman's daughter and
inherited her natural talent of making clothes.
In the first couple of episodes,
it will show you how the stupid mother kind of got herself killed
and left the daughter unattended inside the imperial court.
Fortunately, a kind hearted eunuch brought this girl up pretending that she is
a boy and our proper story didn't begin until she grows to her full maturity.
Our female lead character in the original book didn't have this kind of setup.
at all
Anyway, let's look at how ridiculous some of
the specific plot points in this drama are
early on in this drama.
When our female lead's mother is not dead, yet,
somebody who used to be working at the
imperial court as her student came to her,
ask her to do something stupid that will get her killed.
They haven't met each other for years.
And this former student of our female lead's mother
doesn't know she has a daughter at that point
And yet, at the first moment these two people meet
when the mother actually knows
this person comes into my life looking for trouble.
She greeted this trouble maker and turned aside to
a servant of hers and saying go and find liu li.
See if she's playing somewhere,
tell her not to come back now,
because I don't want her to interrupt our conversation
immediately after that
In their conversation,
our female lead's mother got threatened.
If she doesn't comply
her former student will give her big trouble,
including using her daughter as a bargaining chip,
which she literally just found out a couple of minutes ago,
because female lead's mother
told her in her face,
I heard you talk about somebody naming Liu Li
Is that your daughter?
how did the mother actually survived the years that she
served in the imperial court with that level of intelligence?
And that's just one tiny thing that happens in this drama.
It's pretty much littered with this type of ???? plot,
then not so long after the mother knows the
daughter is in danger and she is in danger, too.
She got the daughter here,
and also with her brother.
So the daughter's uncle
and telling her with tears running
down her face
do not ever let anyone know.
You are my daughter,
you are the first needle of this world.
That's her title.
Don't let anyone know.
You're the daughter of the first needle of this world.
You have to hide your identity while the uncle is present,
standing next to them crying at the same time.
So clearly, he has heard
one scene after that,
the uncle brought his niece to a customer's house,
bring in the new gown that they've made for
this family and leaving a girl there saying,
if you have any further adjustment,
you need to make on your clothing,
this little girl can take care of it.
And customers is like, she's only 7 years old.
How could she deal with that?
The uncle said,
don't you look down upon this little girl
She is the daughter of the first needle of this world.
So much so for being family.
Anyway, you only need to know the girl eventually ended up in the
imperial court and got adopted by eunuch and grew up as a boy.
Think about that.
If you've gone through that in your life,
wouldn't you become a very observant, clever,
fast to react
And very shrewd and politically sensitive person?
NOPE
For our female lead,
after she become an adult,
her body has certainly grown,
but her intelligence received zero development.
For example, through some stupid actions of herself,
her eunuch father realized it is too dangerous
for this stupid girl to stay in the court.
He needs to get her out,
so he got a coffin try to sneak her out of the palace.
What did our female lead decided to do?
Scream inside of the coffin while she couldn't see what is going on outside.
Her adopted father clearly told her to stay silent.
How do you know at
what part of the palace this coffin is at,
as you scream?
What if there are hundreds of guards surrounding you?
And it does not matter, ok? It does not matter
cause our female lead is so kind and so brave,
she wants to jump out of the coffin because she found out
that a friend of hers is in trouble in the court and she
wants to go back and save him at the total risk of
killing her own adopted father and herself.
I don't even know where to start about that kind of plot.
To make it worse.
Once she got out of the palace,
she went back to her family,
trying to meet up with her father didn't quite succeed,
then trying to meet up with her uncle and
eventually got recognized by her uncle.
So they finally reconnected and she changed her name.
Apparently, once your name is changed,
nobody recognize who you are.
Anyway in this story's setting
With her new name she goes to this temple that
she used to visit when she was a little girl,
she kneeled in front of this buddha statue , hah, buddha
What are you good at type of thing?
What type of specialized buddha are you?
What can I pray to you?
And this random woman that she's never met just came up to her
kneeled besides her and tell her this buddha is specialized in blessing your father.
If you tell the buddha who your father is,
where he lives,
the buddha will bless your father.
And our female lead is like,
okay, my father is blah, blah,blah
who lives at this, blah, blah, blah, place.
Please protect him and blah, blah.
And immediately the next scene
the woman went to talk to another guy and told him,
I managed to get it out of her.
She is this name and from this place,
what can I say?
Script writer wants you dead
Therefore you're dead,
script writer wants you stupid,
therefore you're utterly completely stupid.
Our female lead character,
she has no consistent through line.
There's no logic behind everything and anything she does.
In one moment she looks like an imbecile
stupid to the point of unbelievability.
The next moment she suddenly becomes a strong
character and so fiercely, eloquently throw out,
big chunks of theories and make other people shut up
this drama, goes like this.
Okay
By this point, I still haven't talked about the,
male lead because first ten or so episode he kind of is not even there
or like his presence is so minimum that you don't even notice him.
I still don't quite know like after skipping through the first 20 episodes,
what is the function of the male lead
Xu weizhou just dressed up as a tang dynasty person and looking really cool.
Most of the time he's like,
this
that's what his function is in this drama.
The original novel actually received over eight out of
ten scoring from rating websites of the novel's quality.
So that's pretty high quality.
And drama is only 4.8 at this point.
and I think like by the end of it,
it probably is gonna keep going down
honestly I feel so bad for any of the
book fans when they found out that it's gonna get adapted to screen and
it's led by Gu Li Na Zha who is very pretty and actually like appearance-wise
really suitable for this role and GLNZ's acting in this drama
is um... well how should I put it?
Her acting makes Tang Yan's portrayal of Xiao Chuo in Yan Yun Tai
uh... looking like a really proper, good, dramatic work.
They've spent money on it because the costume and stuff looks really good,
sorry for this thing keeps slipping off my shoulder,
all the money went in for what ?
what the heck is this drama?
And also I forgot there's this antihero the big bad guy
in this drama is this woman who works at the
pretty much clothes making department in the imperial court.
Her ploy, her strategy, her cunning
thinking about how to get what she wants and
screw up other people's life is so stupid, for example,
like suggesting making clothes for a concubine who might get
granted the title emperess so that they can kiss up her ass,
but the proposed piece of gown that she wants
to make is exclusively used by emperess
No matter what dynasties you're living in in,
imperial china,
a common knowledge is you use something that is beyond your rank's allowance.
It is equal to treason.
It means you're dead.
If you're a concubine, you wanna wear a piece of clothes
that's only meant for the empress.
You're dead, your family is dead.
And the drama... like some servants in the court
decided to do something like that and it's okay.
And also in the drama they make her so powerful.
She is literally a clothes making maid
you are a nobody in a big,
imperial court,
such as Tang dynasty court
And she somehow acts like she's the king of the world.
She's like a concubine
just like the highest ranking person,
like she can move everything in the court.
It's so ridiculous.
There's even the plot where the emperor
just gives her the right to investigate.
The female lead's mother with the organization that's
equivalent to today's supreme court of china.
It will never happen in any reality.
Anyway, this drama, if I want to rant
I can rant every episode and every scene and
something that's absolutely ridiculous happens.
I'm bafled
There's something this silly can pass censorship
finally I have to tell you
who this woman is in history to give you an idea about how
ridiculous this drama is
the character that Gu Li Na Zha plays in history.
Sorry about my heater.
It's on, but I don't wanna stop talking.
Now.
She is Wu Zetian's very
very close friend.
She actually held a lot of power with the inner court
when wu ze tian got her power for quite a long time,
although historically the record would show you
some other person kind of got a lot of power.
But that person didn't end up very well,
which is Shang Guan Wan Er if you read in chinese history.
But before that it was Pei Xingjian's wife
and she experienced the best
things she can get because she is a good friend to the empress,
the real reigning emperess of the time and she got out of it safe and sound.
She didn't get a scratch with any of the
political turmoils that happened afterwards.
So this woman is an incredible woman.
She would have to be super skillful,
very intelligent.
And can you imagine a character as stupid and moronic
as Gu Li Na Zha has portrayed
In Feng Qi Ni Chang would ever be able to get to that position
not really worth your time watching it,
but like I said, even though the drama is ridiculous,
there's nothing wrong for keep on watching it and enjoying it,
because it looks really pretty.
I would have to agree with that and you know, we can always just watch it as a comedy.
It is literally laughable from beginning till the end,
some kind of really sadistic pleasure
that you can get out of watching this type of drama.
Anyway, thank you for watching AvenueX, I hope you've had fun.
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.